Bringing Your Data Home

You had your picture archive safe on Flickr, your documents on Dropbox, and a running archive of your devices on Apple’s iCloud. But when something happens to one of these services—like the two-day Dropbox downtime—you wonder if keeping your archives in cloud storage options really is the best way to go about this. Cloud storage, no matter how respected the provider, is prone to downtime. And having your precious files suddenly disappear is not something you can take with equanimity.

How to Make a Smooth Switch From Cloud Storage to Home Data Archive OptionsThere’s something about having all that data available at home, in an archive of blu-ray discs or a storage drive; even if all of today’s big web companies go bankrupt, you’ve nothing to worry about. But what is the best data storage, and how to make the switch? Isn’t it too much work to be feasible? Bringing your data home may not be a half hour job, but if you do your planning first, it can be a smooth, easy run and not the huge headache that otherwise threatens.

Your first task is researching which type of storage device to use. Over the years you’ve probably accumulated more than a small amount of data, so your archive solution will need to have high capacity. You also want it to be reliable, long lasting, and you want to be able to add to it periodically. Should you buy a nice high-capacity hard disk drive, or is shelling out the bucks for a state of the art solid state drive the way to go?

The answer is—neither! Hard disk drives and solid state drives are both wonderful in their places, but for a home archive you can’t do better than go with Blu-ray discs. Unlike hard disk drives, which have lots of moving parts that are prone to breakage, a Blu-ray disc is simply a ‘page’ of written information—cold storage, if you will. Unlike solid state drives, where data could deteriorate if not accessed, the data on your Blu-ray discs can be left in a drawer for years and only read when you want what you’ve archived.

Blu-ray discs are affordable, and they won’t take up much room. Over the years you could accumulate a collection of these discs, which can be stored conveniently in a small cabinet or magazine.

You can buy a quality external Blu-ray burner for a very reasonable price; and if you get it from us at Digistor, it’ll come with a program called Rewind™—software that will make archiving super-easy for Windows or OS X. You’ll need to buy your actual discs as well, of course—a set of 10 25GB or 50GB discs is a good place to start.

When you’ve settled on your storage device and ordered your equipment, the next thing to do is figure out how to reclaim your data from cloud storage. Some cloud storage solutions make export super-easy; from others, it is a pain, but it’s better to do it now then five years from now when you’ll have even more to deal with! If you’re looking at long download times, you may want to set up the process in the evening and let it run overnight. Make sure you have room on your computer for everything you’ll be downloading. If you don’t, setup an external hard disk for temporary storage. You can always do it in parts, downloading one disc worth of archive material at a time.

Ready? Push that download button, and watch that data materialize out of thin air and come to solid existence on your home PC. When it’s all there, plug in your Blu-ray burner, stick a disc in and open Rewind™. Making a running archive of your data could scarcely be easier. Choose a name for your archive, select your files, click ‘Archive It!’, and let the burn begin!

Then there is nothing left to do but organize your Blu-ray stash and file it somewhere safe and out of the way. Ideally, you’d make two identical archives, one for home, one for an alternate location. Disaster doesn’t happen often, but when it does , it’s well to be prepared.

For an extra safeguard, you can always keep your files up in your old web repository as well. Cloud solutions are wonderful in their place; as a way to give you access to specific data from a wide variety of locations. They’re also a wonderful as a quick backup of small files in case of natural disasters such as tornado and fire. But for an all-purpose general archive of all your data, pictures, and information, nothing beats a well organized home-based storage center, like your new mini-cabinet of Blu-ray discs.